Wednesday Witterings . . .

 

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 I didn't get a lot done yesterday. Not in the physical sense anyways. I had big plans, but somehow, I got distracted by other things. That happens to me frequently. I have always gotten distracted by other things. I am a frequent flyer on the airline of distracted. I can start off doing one thing and end up doing ten things and in the end am lucky to get even one of them done.

We live in a world filled with distractions. I do not have a hard time ignoring worldly distractions, but here in my wee house I am very easily distracted. Could it be my age?  I don't know. Maybe I have always been this way. That would explain a lot, lol. 

 

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Suddenly the world seems green and glorious.

Suddenly everything seems possible.

Spring is stirring.

Bringing nature indoors is a wonderful spring activity. There is something about bringing home those first spring flowers that is really special.  Cutting off a few branches from some bushes which flower and bringing them indoors so that you can force them into being is like a breath of fresh air. Just cut a cross into the base of each branch to help with water intake and then pop them into a big old jar filled with water. Freshen the water each day and recut the stems to keep your blooming branches healthy. Such a pretty thing to do.  

I was watching Olesya and House on YouTube yesterday and she was setting her table for Easter.  She had gone outside and clipped a few blooms from the garden, hyacinth, white and grape.  She had white napkins that she had folded like open triangles with the opening at the top and tied them shut with some string.  Then she inserted a few stems into each napkin so that just the blooms were showing. I am probably not explaining it correctly, but it was very pretty and yet so simple. You can see it here, starting at 14:35. So pretty. She also makes this really delicious looking Easter bread and the prettiest Easter eggs are dyed using Onion skins. I find her channel so fascinating and inspiring.

 

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It has been many years since I have dyed Easter Eggs.  With no children about there just is not the need. In the old days I used to buy the egg dying kits and the children and I would do them together. Always such a fun activity.  I wish I had known then about the natural ways to dye eggs using things like onion skins, spinach leaves or red beetroot or cabbage. Alas we did not have the internet back then to introduce us to such delights. It was word of mouth, family tradition or happenchance that taught us these things, and I had nobody to teach them to me.

I was never used to the idea of having boiled Easter eggs.  As children our eggs were always raw.  Our mother colored them with crayons and then on Easter morning she would prick both ends with her darning needle.  We would have the pleasure of blowing them out into a bowl. Oh, how that made our cheeks ache.  We would then have scrambled eggs for breakfast. Mom would string the emptied colored eggs onto some yarn into a sort of necklace and we would wear them all day, trying to get through the day without them breaking. A very difficult thing to do.  They always ended up breaking. 

Mom's big thing was for us to each have a solid chocolate bunny. She hadn't had anything like that when she was a child, and a solid chocolate bunny was really special to her.  I liked the ones which also had rice crispies mixed in with the chocolate.  I still like chocolate and rice crispies mixed together. 

Did you get those candy eggs which had all sorts of colors as shells, and a white sugary filling when you were a child? I remember them being very sweet and coming in colors like yellow and lilac, pink and blue, green, etc. The orange ones were my favorite because they kind of tasted like oranges.

I did not like chocolate eggs filled with marshmallow.

With all of that Easter candy it's a wonder we were not pinging off the walls.  We probably were, lol. Poor mom.

 

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I got the freezer cleaned out in my kitchen refrigerator yesterday.  It was full of rock-solid bags of frozen vegetables and fruits. Some freezer burnt way out of date meat, etc. I felt very guilty when I was clearing it out. I filled the freezer up with good intentions. I picked up a bargain here and a bargain there, but how much of a bargain is it really if I only end up throwing it away a couple of years down the road. I wonder if most people who live on their own have the same problem. 

Today I have plans to clean out the bottom part of the refrigerator and purge it with half eaten bottles of pickles and jams, out of date salad dressings.

I can remember coming home to visit mom and checking the dates of everything on her refrigerator door before eating it and finding things which were out of date by years.  She would get most insulted if I didn't want to eat my salad with dressing that had been in there since my last visit four or five years prior.  I have eaten brown Parmesan cheese because I did not want to hurt her feelings, and it did not kill me. Nor did it taste very good.

I am becoming that person with a refrigerator full of expired bargains. I do not want to be her.  And so I will purge.

I need to only buy one of anything when I buy it and then use it up before I get anything else. I also only need to buy what I can reasonably use up in one week, not be thinking too far down the road. And where I live, when it comes to fresh fruit and vegetables, one should only buy what can be used within a day or two.  They have no staying power at all.

I believe we are at the end of the food chain and get only the dregs that nobody else wanted. I can't wait until the farm markets begin to fill with good local fresh fruits and vegetables again.

This was the state of affairs here at several points during the day yesterday. Two sleeping moggies.  They sleep a lot but every so often they have bursts of energy and go flying through the rooms. Love them both so much.  I would love to have them sleep on my bed each night, but I am afeared that Nutmeg would be pestering me at 5 o'clock every morning to get up and feed him. He starts meowing outside my door around that time. Most of the time I don't hear him but every so often I do, and he does it with regularity. He loves his food that one.

And hers too, if he could get away with it.

 

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Ohh, this resonated this morning. We live in such a toxic world and it is so easy to take on board the negativity that surrounds us.  I was reading this thread on FB where a woman was saying that her Filipino daughter had been abused by a customer at KFC for being different.  Racist abuse. You see things like that happening more and more often.  I never saw this Valley I live in as being that way and I don't think it really was, at least not as far down as where I live. It just somehow seemed nicer here.  Small town, etc. Last week there were four FOUR robberies in this town by knifepoint.  A store employee was punched in the last one.  The RCMP did end up arresting the perpetrator, but still. This is the type of thing that never happened in my small town. Last autumn all of the people with sheds in their back gardens across the way had them broken into and their Winter tires stolen. (I don't have a shed and so store mine in my garage.) Its nuts.  In the spring last year someone went through town destroying all of the flower displays, etc. in the middle of the night and they slashed the tires of all of the cars in the car lots.

This is a small Andy Griffith kind of a town. Things like this and racist abuse never used to happen here. It makes me sad to think about it. I think to myself if it is that bad here, how much worse it must be in the city. 

All I can do is keep my own wee space in it safe and free from toxicity and shut the world out when I shut my door.  Maybe that is a bit like living in LaLa land, but I could let myself become really afraid living on my own as I do, if I didn't.

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I am looking forward to my brother coming for his visit towards the end of May. He will be here the last week of May. I know he will have lots of other things to do and mostly he is here to see our Father. My dad ordered himself a new computer yesterday which should be here by then and my brother is going to help him set it up.  Hopefully Cindy will have found out what her Wi-Fi password is by then. When I was there a week or so ago, we could not find the card that had it written on it. It had disappeared from its usual place.  

I love my family so much. My sister, brother and father. There is really just the four of us now.  There is a beautiful bond that is held by being a part of a family.  These are people who share a history with you that nobody else does. They "get" you because they have been there and, whilst many of your experiences may differ in a multitude of ways, there is a thread of commonality which runs through many other experiences.

I am looking forward to the time we will share together while my brother is down. All of us, together.

 

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I am doing this more and more often. Asking myself this question. Before I buy anything, before I invest myself in anything, etc. I am at an age in life where every day is a bonus. I don't want to clutter my days with things that do not bring me joy or that do not inspire. I am rethinking a lot of things . . . it is a long hard process as I am a collector. and I have a very difficult time saying no to people . . . 

I am working on it.

And with that I best leave you with a thought for the day.  I have a bazillion things that I want to get to today and I know with my adhd brain I will only be able to touch on a fraction of it.

A thought to carry with you . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •

•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

 *Be a lamp a lifeboat

or a ladder. ~unknown

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •

Have you ever been asked to bring a meal to someone who has been ill and is recovering, or who has just had a baby, etc.  In the kitchen today I am giving my ideas of things you can cook for such situations, with soups, breads, mains and desserts. The Meal Train.

I hope you have a beautiful day. Whatever you get up to stay safe and be blessed.  Don't forget!

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And I do too!